Obama’s Asia pivot: A work in progress

President Barack Obama is heading to Asia this week with a simple message: The pivot is real.

The Marine Corps is beefing up its deployments to Guam and Australia. The Navy is sending more ships to Japan. And Obama, who leaves Tuesday, could use his stop in the Philippines to announce that Manila and Washington have finally agreed on new U.S. military rotations there, more than 20 years after the last American troops left. He’s also visiting Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.

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The White House’s problem is that even after years of talking about the strategic “rebalance” to the western Pacific, the president and his administration still face a wall of skepticism from regional governments and critics inside Washington. Obama and his top officials love to talk about focusing on Asia, the argument goes, but they do not walk the walk.

The Pentagon’s budget is projected to remain flat at best. The military services that were supposed to enforce Washington’s commitment to Asian security are shrinking. Their ships, aircraft and equipment are aging. Meanwhile, neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress appear to seriously expect anything to stop the resumption of sequestration in fiscal 2016.

China and the major Asian powers, meanwhile, have begun a regional arms buildup on their own.

“The Asia-Pacific shift is going to happen. The question is whether we will be ready for it, whether we will be prepared for it,” said Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes, an outspoken critic of the administration’s defense policies. “What was wrong was for them to cut all the resources out so they couldn’t actually make that pivot.”

And it’s about more than money, said Robert Hathaway, director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program — America’s Asian allies worry about its ability to keep its eye on the ball.

“They’re concerned about the resources that are going to be committed to the rebalance, and by resources I mean not simply financial resources, military assets, but also what I would call the single most crucial resource in Washington, which is the attention of senior decision-makers,” he said.

Obama’s “rebalance” suggested American decision-makers would elevate the importance of the Asian sphere, Hathaway said, but Japan — and to a lesser extent, South Korea — don’t feel so elevated.

“There are concerns about the United States being distracted elsewhere, whether it’s the Middle East, Ukraine, Iran, domestic issues, the list goes on and on, and its order changes on a weekly basis,” Hathaway said. “I think our friends in Asia do wonder whether or not, even if we are committed in theory to the rebalance, whether the urgency of [last] week’s problems doesn’t tend to move the rebalance down on the list of our priorities.”

Administration officials bristle at the suggestion that they’re less than committed to the strategic shift; they insist it’s happening and will be effective — even with a smaller military.

“Listen, the rebalance is at the front and center of our national security strategy, and it will continue to be so, even in the face of budget cuts,” said one senior defense official. “This is a part of the world that’s going to drive future prosperity and security, and we take that very seriously. I can’t comment on regional perceptions on the rebalance in the region. You’d have to ask those in the region.”

Reporters did ask Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about the perceptions of the defense ministers he met from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this month in Hawaii, and he, too, said that Washington is serious.